Remanufacturing is a rapidly growing industry and philosophy. Remanufacturing means removing manufactured products from current use, processing them in a manufacturing environment where they are efficiently and completely repaired and prepared for further life, then returning the remanufactured product to customers for additional service. Customers exchange cores, which are the used products, for a remanufactured replacement product at a dealer or other repair facility. Remanufacturers gather the cores together at a manufacturing facility where the cores are typically disassembled, cleaned, inspected, repaired, reassembled, and then sold back to customers as a remanufactured product. Remanufacturing extends the life of products, which results in cost savings, economy of resources, and environmental benefits. The quality of remanufactured products is typically as good as, and in some cases better than, the original new product.
The automotive industry remanufactures a large variety and volume of products. Transmissions and engines are common examples of products that are remanufactured then sold to customers as rebuilt service parts. In the automotive industry, rebuilt is an adjective commonly used to describe remanufactured products.
When automotive automatic transmissions are returned as cores, the torque converter is typically still installed in the transmission. At the remanufacturing facility, the torque converter will be separated from the transmission, and undergo various steps to prepare it to be reattached to another remanufactured transmission that will eventually be sold to a customer. The steps a torque converter may undergo include inspection to determine which torque converters have components needing repair or replacement, and repair for those which fail the inspection.
A significant proportion of automotive torque converters are constructed with a housing comprising two clam shell-like halves that are welded together along an exterior seam. In order to perform the inspection steps, a current common practice is to first cut the two clam shell-like halves apart along the weld seam. Then the torque converters, whose internal components can now be easily accessed, are inspected and verified. Some portion of the torque converters fail the inspection and require repair of the internal components. But a significant portion passes the inspection and does not require repair. Those that pass the inspection and verification are then rewelded along the original weld seam and are ready for reinstallation into a remanufactured transmission. This cutting and rewelding of those torque converters that will pass the inspection and be reused without any repair steps represents an expense which is desirable to avoid. However, there is currently no method of performing inspection and verification to identify those good torque converters without first cutting open the torque converter's housing.